New York, May 14, 2026, 11:01 EDT
- Nvidia and Cisco powered tech stocks higher, pushing both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new intraday records.
- Retail sales for April climbed 0.5%. Jobless claims hit 211,000.
- Rate-cut optimism barely registered—Kalshi and Polymarket both put odds for a Fed pause in June at close to 97%.
Stocks climbed on Thursday in the U.S., pushing the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new intraday highs. Nvidia and Cisco fueled the advance, keeping Wall Street in the green despite a streak of stronger-than-expected inflation numbers.
This shift is significant: investors keep piling into the artificial-intelligence trade even as the macro outlook turns rougher. Ordinarily, pricier markets spell trouble for high-growth names, yet earnings, chip demand, and bets that the U.S.-China summit won’t inflame trade tensions are keeping things afloat.
At 10:30 a.m. Eastern, the S&P 500 climbed 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite matched that gain, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average tacked on 254 points, according to AP. About half an hour earlier, Reuters had reported the Dow up 0.5%, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both higher by 0.4% just before 10 a.m. ET.
Nvidia shares climbed following a Reuters scoop that the U.S. has greenlit about 10 Chinese companies—including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com—to purchase its H200 AI chip, although none have received shipments yet. Lenovo also said it’s one of the firms allowed to sell the chips in China under Nvidia’s export license.
Cisco stood out, with its stock jumping to an all-time high. The networking giant bumped up its annual revenue outlook, announcing $5.3 billion in AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers—those major cloud customers—and boosting its full-year order target from $5 billion to $9 billion.
“The companies that will win in the AI era will be those with focus, urgency, and the discipline to continuously shift investment toward the areas where demand and long-term value creation are strongest,” Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins wrote in a company post cited by Reuters. Direxion’s Ryan Lee, senior vice president of product and strategy, said the market response pointed to “hyperscaler capex spilling downstream,” emphasizing that AI spending covers “more than just chips.” Reuters
The rally didn’t get a green light from the latest economic numbers. April retail and food-services sales climbed 0.5% to $757.1 billion, according to the Census Bureau, but that figure isn’t adjusted for inflation. March’s increase was knocked down to 1.6% after revision. Retail trade sales also posted a 0.5% uptick over March.
Unemployment claims ticked up, though the numbers don’t suggest any real weakness in the labor market. For the week ended May 9, initial jobless claims climbed by 12,000 to 211,000, according to the Labor Department. Continued claims for the prior week, ended May 2, rose to 1.782 million.
Inflation sticks out here. Businesses saw the producer price index climb 1.4% in April and jump 6.0% from a year ago—that’s the biggest annual gain since December 2022. For households, consumer prices increased 3.8% over the past year through April.
The Federal Reserve remains a focal point for traders. According to Oddpool’s live monitor, which tracks prices from Kalshi and Polymarket, there’s a 97.3% average probability the Fed will hold rates steady at the June meeting—97.0% on Kalshi, 97.6% on Polymarket. Polymarket’s own Fed dashboard puts the odds at 98% for no move.
“Consumers aren’t in a recession, but they’re not powering the economy either,” said David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation, in comments to Reuters. He noted the latest retail data “don’t ring any alarm bells at the Fed” and still tilt the odds toward higher rates. Reuters
There’s a danger in leaning too much on AI earnings to do the heavy lifting. A spike in oil-driven inflation could push costs up, or if Nvidia’s China chip approvals stay stuck, tech names sensitive to rates might see support evaporate. Chris McGuire, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Reuters that further Nvidia chip sales to China risk “a smaller U.S. lead in AI over China.” Reuters
So far, breadth tilted to the upside. According to Reuters, technology paced gains as nine of the S&P 500’s 11 sectors moved higher. On both the NYSE and Nasdaq, advancing issues topped decliners. The takeaway wasn’t subtle: bets on AI expansion keep drawing money, despite inflation reminding investors the Fed might not be riding to the rescue just yet.
